


Gothica

by MizJoely



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, Major character death - Freeform, Sherlolly - Freeform, but not really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-15
Updated: 2019-11-15
Packaged: 2021-01-31 12:01:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21445882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MizJoely/pseuds/MizJoely
Summary: Puddlejumper72-blog-blog on tumblr said: Sherlollists…If I have done this correctly, I have found an idea for you writers, of Sherlolly for the Victorian Era. It is a Gothic Funeral carriage. I was thinking for Molly. Told from Sherlock's point of view. Perhaps he has flashbacks, dreams or something. Any takers?
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/Molly Hooper
Comments: 9
Kudos: 71
Collections: SherlollyPrompts





	Gothica

_The nightmare always starts off innocently enough. A Victorian mansion in winter, softly covered by snow. Leafless trees, limbs blowing in an unfelt wind. A single window lit by a candle on the main floor, with all others dark. Nothing untoward; it's night in this dreamscape. There are no people, no sounds…until his ear catches the somber clop-clop of (muffled and not just by the snow) horse's hooves. The soft crunch of gravel beneath heavy (iron?) wheels._

_His dream-self, which has until now been viewing all this somewhere in the vague distance, is suddenly stood directly in front of the house. He is standing ramrod straight, the unfamiliar (and yet, not) weight of a hat on his head. Not a winter hat, but rather a formal top-hat. It's black, he knows without looking, as are his clothing - formal, stiff, uncomfortable clothing from another era, vastly different to the one in which he was born._

_As unfamiliar to him as the clothing he finds himself wearing is the growing sense of dread as he awaits the arrival of the as-yet unseen equipage being driven so slowly up the long and winding drive. Trees bar his view, and hedges; he longs to crane his neck, to move forward to see what creeps so remorselessly toward him, but he also feels such dread that he longs with equal fervor to turn and run. To slam the massive wooden front door behind him and turn the key in the lock. To dash up the stairs to a room - his bedroom, no, _their _bedroom, although he's not sure who 'they' are - and hide under the covers like a child._

_The feel of a small hand in his causes him to look down; he is no longer alone in this dreamscape, but finds himself standing next to a small boy with somber brown eyes and a head of messy brown curls escaping from beneath a miniature top hat. The boy's clothes are the same unrelieved black as his own, and his cheeks show the signs of tears, recently scrubbed away, even though his expression remains stoic._

_Sherlock blinks, his brow crinkling in confusion; who is this child and why does he look so achingly familiar?_

_Another small hand steals into his and he turns his head to see a small girl, roughly the same age as the boy, clinging to his side. Her cheeks are chapped and rosy and there are still tears glittering on her eyelashes. Her curls, however, are neatly arrayed beneath a somber black bonnet and as he meets her gaze she whispers, "Do we have to let them take Mama, Papa? Does she truly have to leave us?"_

_His throat closes at her words and suddenly he is the one fighting tears._

_As he opens his mouth in an attempt to answer her questions, he is interrupted by the scornful words of the little boy - her twin, how could he have missed that before, his twin children aged five - standing on his other side. "Mama is already gone to the angels, Sophie." But beneath the scorn is a sorrow so vast, so deep, his heart clenches in sympathy. "Only her body is left and if it stays here it'll be like that baby rabbit you brought home and hid in your room until it started to stink so badly Mrs. Hudson could smell it in the kitchen."_

"_That's enough, Edwin," Sherlock hears himself say sharply. Edwin. Edwin John Mycroft Holmes and his sister, Sophia Mary Margaret Holmes. His children. His children who have lost their mother far, far too young, and are left with only him to care for them - how will he manage? How can he possibly care for these two young lives when he can barely manage his own? How, he thinks in sudden, overwhelming anger, can she have been so selfish as to have left them behind like this?_

_He forces the anger, the hurt and bewilderment and fear for the future, down deep within his mind. Seals the emotions in a lead-lined coffer, locks it and sinks it away to be dealt with when and if he is ever capable of doing so._

_The horse's hooves, the carriage wheels, silent somehow whilst he dealt with his children, loom large in his consciousness again, their sounds overwhelming everything. He looks up, unwillingly, and sees the funeral carriage approaching._

_It stops in front of him, the horses blowing steam from their nostrils and chomping restlessly at their bits, the blinders on their eyes and the black, muffling fabric around their hooves seeming to mock him even as the elaborate Gothic coach meant to carry his beloved wife away from him forever mocks him._

_The sound of footsteps behind him catch his attention and he stares, transfixed, as the coffin is borne out on the shoulders of his wife's four brothers, with the other two spots taken up by his own brother and the man who has been like a brother to him. John Watson's face is solemn, Mycroft's is unreadable but he knows what sorrow lurks behind their eyes and hearts, because he is feeling that same sorrow, building and growing despite his desperate attempts to wrestle it under control._

"_Mr. Holmes?" The mortician speaks quietly, respectfully, but all Sherlock wants to do is tear his black, crepe-bedecked hat from his head, strangle him with his own cloak, scream and cry and demand to ask how dare he come between him and his wife, his Mol…_

"Sherlock!"

He wrenches awake, choking on a strangled sob, bolting upright and clutching the sweat-dampened sheets to his chest before his eyes find her. "Molly," he breathes out, pulling her to him and holding her close, so close.

"Was it the funeral dream again?" she asks as she wraps her arms around him and runs soothing fingers up and down his back, across his shoulders and through his hair.

He nods, as unable to speak now as he was in the dream. The nightmare. Molly in a coffin, being taken away from him forever.

A nightmare his sister planted in his mind those many months ago, and one from which he finds himself waking all too often as Molly's pregnancy advances. She's carrying twins - his twins, his children, a boy and girl just like in the nightmare - and it's all he can do to hold onto his sanity in moments like this.

"I think," Molly says softly, carefully, as his speeding heart starts slowing itself down, "I think maybe it's time, don't you, Sherlock? I know you don't want to, but…"

"But I need to find some way to deal with this anxiety I have over losing you," he finishes for her. He nods, buries his face in the sweet spot between shoulder and neck, unwilling to let her go just yet. "Yes, Molly, you're right. As always."

As an attempt at humor it falls somewhat flat, but she gives him a soft laugh of appreciation nonetheless. "It'll be all right, Sherlock, we'll be all right. All of us."

He nods again, an agreement his heart won't let him fully believe, and shudders as a vision of that funeral coach, so elaborate and foreboding, flashes behind his eyes. "We'll be all right," he echoes, and this time - knowing her love for him is strong enough to withstand anything and his for her is strong enough that he will, indeed, endure the prying and pushing of whatever psychologist his brother finds for him - he manages to makes himself to believe it.


End file.
